Jamie Owen

Interaction Design and learning

Curriculum Vitae

Synopsis
Jamie’s skills are a unique amalgam which draws on eLearning, visual communication, usability, and systematic design. His experience ranges from technology interaction contexts to cognition and learning to graphic design to the social responsibilities within multiculturalism. These areas share many common theories, methodologies, and practices--Jamie is adept at bringing them together to the benefit of his respective projects and initiatives.

Instructional Systems Design (ISD) operating at both the program and project levels. Organizational catalyst for analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation of elearning. Successfully established processes which integrate instructional design with product design and development in order to create eLearning for specialized learning environment.

Integrating design disciplines as the lead on information architecture, instructional design, and/or user experience aspects of web-based instruction: user base and learning audience of physicians and medical practitioners. Active in evolving the development and process strategies for SCORM-compliant products within an LMS. Logo and branding lead for internal initiatives. Maintains, the SME Prep Tool, a proprietary liaison tool to help experts articulate and chunk information for subsequent repurposing by instructional designers.

Interactivity and solutions design for branding and creative team
marchFIRST/WhittmannHart (2000 - 2002)

Instructor - Education Dept.: "Web Design for Teachers," a course in the graduate-level teacher education program. Covered concepts of coding, content strategy, multimedia learning, layout, typography, and troubleshooting for a wide range of teachers’ disciplines and abilities. Semester-long projects designed to be real-world tools students applied in their respective professional setting.

Grew the standardized use of technology within leading Ohio school district in the areas of web, print and video production. Budget management and committee chair for applied research and development for future-use multimedia technologies. Managed classroom teachers in their implementation of multimedia resources. Participated in development of best practices in district’s community relations.

Publications & Presentations

Designing the Democratic; Thinking outside of our own cultural influences can strengthen our design decisions
Published at Boxes and Arrows

It is increasingly rare that our users are all from a single nation or culture. Often, our designs must meet the needs of several groups at once. I talk about how our own cultures affect our design decisions.

Cues, The Golden Retriever; How our natural responses to stimuli can inform the design process
Published at Boxes and Arrows

Our brains constantly process the stimuli in our environment and respond, consciously and unconsciously, to what is going on around us. Cues help us navigate this environment. Jamie Owen explores how memory, cognitive psychology, and multimedia research integrate to affect how information is encoded and retrieved as well as how we can best utilize cues in our work.

Elements of cultural dynamics represented in a computer’s graphical user interfaces (GUIs) result from an alignment between designing for onscreen usability and practicing principles of democratic responsibility. Designers and developers seek to understand how end-users respond best during interactions with computers and technology. In planning a union of technology and culture to serve the end user, there is a unique opportunity to design toward a democratic responsibility—to give the users a fair voice in articulating their own learning. At the core of democratic responsibility within usability design is the idea that the interactions onscreen best match the users’ cultural aesthetic, thus increasing the potential agency of the learning.

Regional University had been heavily promoting its online courses for several years and their efforts were really starting to pay off. More and more courses and even entire degree programs were being offered online, and enrollment was up significantly. Regional’s growing reputation for quality was starting to attract students from outside the area and, increasingly, from other countries as well. The word-of-mouth among the international community was leading to enrollment of groups of students from specific places as well. At least some faculty members were excited about the possibilities for improving their teaching and reaching more students.

Voice and Choice: Onscreen Usability as a Praxis of DemocracyPoster - Fourth Annual Conference of Educational Research Exchange 2007

Represented paper researching elements of cultural dynamics in a computer’s graphical user interfaces (GUIs) which result from an alignment between designing for onscreen usability and practicing principles of democratic responsibility.

Mediation and Resolution of Interactive Technology and the Graphical User InterfacePresenter - International Academy for Intercultural Research Conference 2005

Given the breadth and variety of mediations that may utilize technology to leverage an intercultural strategy, it’s important that any component of this strategy is represented to a degree onscreen. The GUI must work to advance the mediations rather detract from them. However tactical or strategic, active or passive, the elements of the GUI must be deliberate and used consciously not only in regard their immediate effects, but in how those effects fit ubiquitously into any broader mediation endeavor that has chosen to integrate the technology.

Affiliations & Awards

Usability Professionals’ Association (UPA) - Cleveland Chapter. The UPA supports those who promote and advance the development of usable products, reaching out to people who act as advocates for usability and the user experience.

The Information Architecture Institute (IAI) - Supports individuals and organizations
specializing in the design and construction of shared information environments

Web Association (WA) - a nonprofit professional organization whose mission is to serve as a professional technology organization for the Northeast Ohio Internet and Business communities, offering an open forum, education, mutual support and networking opportunities.

Innovations in American Government Award - awarded by Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government for a progressive technology-centered school-to-work program.